Lesson Planning; What type of Assessments can and should be used?

There are so many deciding factors on what type of assessments to use for your course.   Here are some factors to contemplate when choosing assessments.

Firstly, when and how should you incorporate each of the 3 assessment types?

1. Diagnostic assessments = are often used to help with gauging the level of student’s background knowledge and depth of understanding of topics.  These tests or assignments are frequently used in lesson planning and can also be used to help the instructor determine how well students are mastering each topic throughout the term.  Diagnostic assessments can be short or long and there are many different formats that can be used:  polls, quizzes, in-class discussions, KWL charts (What I Know, What I want to know, and What I learned). concept maps, tickets in or out the door such as minute or muddy waters papers.  These assessments are marked and can be used by the instructor to help plan future lessons.  Often these types of assessments are low-stakes and the instructor will decide whether the marks will count towards the course grade and if so how much they will be worth.  Some instructors give some marks towards grades to encourage participation and the marks given could be purely for participation, or include grades that reflect the number of correct responses given.  Other instructors gather information from diagnostic assessments but keep them low stress by not using them towards final course grades.
2. Formative assessments = While diagnostic assessments are often used at the beginning of term or unit as pre-tests, formative assessments and summative assessments are typically used during the term and at the end of term in order to determine the learning achieved by each student.  Formative assessments are used with two main purposes in mind.  Firstly, they are used as assessments for/as learning to provide students opportunities to practice their new knowledge as well as reinforce their understanding of course material and assist in identifying any challenging areas that students can focus on studying.  Formative assessments are also designed to provide the instructor with immediate feedback on how well the students are learning course content and instructors can identify any challenging concepts that can be clarified in future classes.  Formative assessments are often low-stakes assignments that are used daily or weekly during class time or homework time.  Assignment types can include all of the above examples used for diagnostic assessments such as quizzes, discussion posts, concept maps, charts, diagrams, short answers assignments, as well as essays, oral presentations, team-based learning (TBL) assignments, lab work assignments, case studies, problem based learning (PBL), POGIL (process oriented guided inquiry learning) assignments.
3. Summative assessments = As the name suggests, summative assessments are designed to provide a summary of what students have learned during the term.  Frequently midterm exams, lab exams, final exams, and term papers are used as summative assessments.

Factors to consider when choosing assessment types as well as frequency of assessments

1. Scope of the course, background knowledge and range of background knowledge of the learners.
2. Year of study and age range of learners
3. Desired level of structure of course (e.g., High or Low Structure)
4. Amount of time the instructor has to design the assessments
5. Number of students and types of skills/knowledge that the instructor wants to assess – can affect the ability to grade and give prompt feedback.
6. Ability to incorporate Learning as/for Assessments of the course’s Learning Outcomes
7. Amount of time it takes students to complete the assessments and other aspects of the course.
8. Availability of resources (e.g., technology, tutors, books, readings) to adequately support the students in their completion of the assessment
9. Ability to accommodate any technology issues that may arise.
10. Cognitive load for students (and possibly instructors) associated with the assessment’s design (e.g., technology requirements).
11. Ability to incorporate elements that are engaging, interesting, memorable and/or related to the real world.
12. Ability to provide a fair marking scheme.  Ability to provide helpful feedback by peers, teaching assistants, instructors or community members.
13. Ability to navigate the possible use of GenAI in assignments to make assessments still valid as a learning experience.  Ability to pre-empt and/or detect any foreseeable academic dishonesty issues.
14. Ability to create suitable accommodations that may be required for assessments.
15. Ability to construct an assessment that doesn’t put traditionally marginalized students at a disadvantage.
16. Ability to design an assessment that is inclusive and one that incorporated UDL (Universal Design for Learning).

Type of Knowledge or Skills being Assessed

The assessments chosen can also depend on the type of knowledge or skill that the students are learning.

Which of the following do you need to assess?

1. Foundational Knowledge (facts, ideas, perspectives)
2. Application (critical, creative, practical thinking, skills)
3. Integration (connecting course concepts to one another and own life)
4. Human Dimension (students learning about themselves or others and/or interacting with others)
5. Caring (changes in students’ interests, values, disposition
6. Learning How to Learn (becoming self-directed learners, engaging in inquiry and knowledge)

Scaffolding Course Elements to Support Learning

When designing a course’s assessments , it is worth considering structuring assignments to help build scaffolded learning within the course.

Building Student Flexibility and Autonomy into Assessments

When following Universal Design for Learning guidelines as well as recommendations from the literature, it has been found that building flexibility into assessments can increase student engagement and learning.

What type of Flexibility have you built in to your assessments?

Here are some ideas for building flexibility into your assessments

1. Crowdsource syllabus:  allowing students to assist in choosing course exemplars, assignments, and rubrics criteria.
2. Give assignment choices and/or submission format choices.
3. Group assignments with multiple parts (each student picks part), written, oral, diagram/drawing/demo/narrative/Q&A, research,
4. Groups assignments – students choose parameter for group making
5. Two-stage exams, creative assignments
6. Allow students to choose individual/group assignment
7. Student Portfolios, journals, music assignments.